Chevron celebrates 5 billion Basin barrels

Published 4:07 pm, Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Photo: Tim Fischer

Image 1of/2

Caption

Close

Image 1 of 2

Photo: Tim Fischer

Image 2 of 2

Photo: Tim Fischer

Chevron celebrates 5 billion Basin barrels

1 / 2

Back to Gallery

As Chevron prepared to celebrate the production of 5 billion barrels of Permian Basin oil, company officials said the celebration was as much about Chevron's employees and their communities as it was the company.

They proved it during Wednesday's celebration with a surprise donation of $1 million, evenly divided between Christmas in Action of Odessa and Midland's Permian Basin Petroleum Museum.

Mitch Mamoulides, Chevron's Permian South area manager, estimated Chevron employees, along with corporate matches, contributed $345,000 to Permian Basin communities in 2010 along with time volunteering at schools, as Scout leaders and volunteer firefighters, delivering Meals on Wheels and serving on school boards and non-profit boards.

"We appreciate being here because we're allowed to be here," said Gary Luquette, president of Chevron North America Exploration & Production, who traveled from Houston for the celebration. "We get our license to operate from the community. We're thankful for 85 years of history and look forward to many, many more years."

Keynote speaker George Kirkland, Chevron's vice chairman and executive vice president, fondly recalled his time working in Midland in the early 1980s.

"Being in Midland was a great experience," he said. "You learn so much from everywhere you live in the world."

He said Chevron's Permian Basin associates were doing "something special in managing mature assets."

Kirkland stressed Chevron's commitment to the Permian Basin, which is significant to the company, accounting for an estimated 5 percent of the company's production and a similar amount of its revenue. Recovering 5 billion barrels from the Permian Basin was not just a reflection of Chevron's legacy but to the future.

"I bet a lot of companies that left wish they still had the land position they used to have," he observed. Technology has evolved from waterfloods to carbon dioxide floods, from 3-D seismic to horizontal drilling and multi-stage fracturing to out oil that previously couldn't be produced, Kirkland said. "Instead of listening to people who said the Permian Basin was tapped out, we listened to the veterans who said the best place to find oil is where it's already been found."

This is an exciting time "for the innovative people on our team," he said. "We aim to get the rest of the 60 billion barrels still left in the Permian Basin," where most of the nation's potential reserves are waiting to be tapped. The Permian Basin not only has production potential, Kirkland said, but human potential.

"Oil and gas finders have an unparalleled opportunity to learn from the ground up and get their hands on more wells than anywhere else. They can work in primary recovery, secondary or tertiary recovery. They can come up with an idea today that becomes reality in a matter of months. The technology developed here gets exported to Chevron operations around the world."

Mamoulides reflected that philosophy in his comment, "As we pause to celebrate 5 billion barrels, human energy continues," with over 300 Chevron employees busy drilling new wells as the celebration continued. "Human energy will continue to find new ways to unlock unconventional reserves."

This year, he said, Chevron will be busy developing the Wolfcamp formation, using improvements in fracturing technology to ramp up activity in tight oil reserves and spending more capital in the Permian Basin. More rigs will also be put to work, he said, not only drilling new wells but reworking existing wells.

Every barrel produced, Kirkland said, creates economic success for the communities, creating more venue and jobs, he added. "What we do builds a stronger nation."